Apples and Ashes
by misscam
Summary: "There wasn't even a body after, Henry keeps focusing on. That's the thing. There wasn't even a body." Henry tries to come to grips with the loss of his mother and who she was. [Henry, Regina, Emma, minor Snow/Charming.]


Apples and Ashes  
by misscam

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Notes: AU. Set a few years ahead after a final battle. Character deaths referenced.

II

There wasn't even a body after, Henry keeps focusing on. That's the thing. There wasn't even a body. The magic just ripped Regina apart, and the ashes carried with the wind and left him nothing to mourn. He tried to find them after, searched in all debris, but he just couldn't tell it apart from everything else destroyed in the fight.

No body. Not even ashes. Nothing to bury. And so he hasn't. His mother – one of his mothers – died, and he can't really grieve her, can't bury her, can't move on.

He feels like the only who hasn't. Even Mary Margaret had shown a moment of grief, leaning against David when they realised what had happened as if she could burrow into him, and his grandfather had closed his eyes to the sight.

Emma had just looked like stone, but she had been the one to bring down Cora later with Regina's book. He isn't sure exactly what that meant. He just knows that Emma, Emma was not indifferent to Regina's death. For his sake or her own, he isn't sure, but she wasn't indifferent.

It is him who feels frozen.

There wasn't even a body. There was just the moment where she was there, his mother, and the moment where she wasn't anymore.

What makes it all worse is that they all know Regina died for him. Of course she did. She may have stopped actively trying to kill Snow, Emma and Charming over the years for his sake, but she wouldn't die for them. No.

She would apparently die for him. Turn the tide of the battle, in fact. The last battle won. A permanent portal to the enchanted forest created for those who wanted to return, which was already clear wouldn't be everyone. So many dead to mourn first. A victory, but with its losses.

He watches the dead be buried with so much intent he knows it is worrying Emma and his grandparents. Red buries Granny. The Dwarfs bury Sneezy. No one has seen Hook since he killed Mr. Gold and got the Dark Curse on himself, but Belle still walks around as if in a daze.

Mourning puts a special mark on you, Henry thinks. Almost like a curse, sapping the life away from everything around you. No wonder people avert their eyes and don't quite dare look at it.

His grandparents do look at him, but then, they know grief and curses. David is still limping from his wounds in the fight, and Mary Margaret still favours the left arm while the right arm heals. Still, they are lucky, and he almost hates them a little for it. (He just loves them more for everything else.) They may feel sorry for Regina, sorry for his loss, but it was his loss. They have each other still. They can touch each other's scars and kiss it all better.

Mary Margaret kisses the top of his head sometimes too, as if she knows his scars are on the inside and it's as close as she can get.

Emma, Emma doesn't look at him. For days now she's just busied herself cleaning up Storybrooke, taking care of David and Mary Margaret despite their protests, taking charge and being a leader.

In the past, he would have enjoyed that, seeing it as his mother accepting who she was, but now he simply longs for her to kidnap him and take him somewhere in her yellow bug instead. He wants her to shout at him, look at him, not feel as if he's lost one mother and can't hold on to the other.

There wasn't even a body. No grave for Regina Mills. Not that many would come grieve at it anyway. She had done too much as the Evil Queen and even when she had vowed to change, she had still hurt people from time to time. He knows that deep down, many residents of Storybrooke are a little relieved she is dead.

He doesn't blame them for that. He saw her hurt Emma, saw her almost kill his grandfather, saw her seek the misery of his grandmother in as many ways as possible, saw her lie, manipulate and be willing to kill. Before that, she did even worse, he knows. The Evil Queen. She earned that name

It just wasn't her only name. Not to him. She was also mom and she did try to live up to it in the end, even having it as the last thing she ever heard.

He dreams of that sometimes, the moment where he screamed "Mom!" and she looked at him, just looked at him with so much joy the heartbeat before Cora's magic teared into her and she became nothing. He never cries when he wakes from it, just wakes to wonder if his own heart has stopped beating as well.

There wasn't even a body. Nothing to look at to see life had left her, nothing to hug to him while realisation slowly set in. Nothing. Just the look of joy on her face burned into his memory, and he can't understand that. Why would she be happy?

He usually ends up crawling in with Emma or David and Mary Margaret after waking from that dream, even though he's had his own bed for a long time now. He knows he should be too old for this kind of thing, but they don't seem to mind.

Emma always makes room for him even sleeping, looking exhausted from her day even asleep. David always wakes up and makes room while trying not to wake Mary Margaret, but hardly ever succeeds. Not that his grandmother seems to mind at all, always just smiling. Sometimes Henry asks them to tell him their story again, falling asleep to the power of true love whispered by his grandparents.

There wasn't even a body. Nothing for him to try true love's kiss on, as Emma had used on him, as his grandparents had used on each other, as the stories held up as stronger than any cruse. Maybe Regina didn't know how to love very well, but he did. That might have been enough. Even if it hadn't, at least then he would know.

Not knowing is the worst. He keeps wondering if it could have been different, if it should have been different, or if this was the way it was always meant to be. Maybe that's why she smiled at the end. Evil Queen dying for the one good thing in her life. Mother dying for her son. Death as redemption. It makes sense as a story. It hurts as a reality.

II

She left him the house, he finds out, overhearing Emma and David talk about in hushed voices over the breakfast table. Of course she did, he could shout at them. He was her son. It is only logical. But instead he feels just empty and goes to sit down on the sidewalk outside. It is there Mary Margaret finds him, sitting down next to him without a word.

"She did love you, Henry," Mary Margaret finally offers, and he wonders how that should be any comfort at all. Of course she did. That's why she's dead.

Maybe it's a comfort to her, he realises after a moment, and leans his head against her shoulder. After everything, maybe that's a comfort to Snow White.

They're still sitting like that when David walks out, smiling a little at the sight of them. He winces when he sits down, Henry notices, the leg still clearly hurting. It will heal, of course, but Emma has still shown far too much concern over it. Henry wonders if it because she knows the wound came from protecting her.

He knows that feeling of guilt. His protection took a life.

"Was this the only way it could end?" he asks suddenly, surprised at the force of his own words. "For my mother. Was this the only way it could end for her?"

"I don't know, Henry," David says seriously, looking at him with earnest eyes. "Someone once told me evil wasn't born, but made. If it can then also be unmade, I don't know. I like to think so. I know she tried."

Without thinking, he embraces his grandfather forcefully, feeling Mary Margaret's arms go around them both as well. David pats his hair comfortingly, Mary Margaret strokes his back and he closes his eyes to the caresses.

He still doesn't cry though. He can't. There wasn't even a body.

When he looks up, Emma is standing above them all with eyes downcast. For a moment it looks almost like she wants to flee, but then she takes a deep breath and seems to steel herself.

"I am sorry, Henry," she says thickly. "I know I promised you she wasn't dying."

It takes him a moment to digest her words, then he realises this must be why she's been avoiding him. Not for something he's done after all. Something she perceives she failed to do. Her guilt feels so sharp cutting into him it makes his heart contract a little painfully.

He stands up, walking over to her until she finally, finally looks at him.

"It was her choice," he tells her, surprised at the strength of his own voice. It is the truth, he realises. He's speaking the truth. It was his mother's choice and neither he nor Emma could have changed it. She was much too stubborn for that. "There wasn't anything you could have done."

She closes her eyes and exhales as he hugs her. Behind him, he can hear Mary Margaret do a sharp intake of breath, almost like a sob.

"I was afraid you were blaming me," Emma says. "You've been so quiet and strange."

"There wasn't a body," he tells her after a moment. His words sounding muffled against her shirt.

"What?"

"Mom. There wasn't a body after she..." he breathes, finding the sentence impossible to finish. "I had nothing to bury."

"Oh," Emma says, hugging him a little closer. In the silence, he can almost hear the adults having an unspoken conversation with looks over his head.

"Henry," Mary Margaret says after a moment, and Henry shifts a little to look at her. She's leaning against David, her eyes teary but warm with love. "I think there is something you need to see."

II

They take him into town, Emma not letting go of him and David and Mary Margaret still leaning on each other. At first he wonders if they've taken him to see the destruction still being cleaned up, but when Emma squeezes his shoulder lightly he notices it.

The apple tree, he realises. His mother's apple tree. It is dying, a great gash straight through it and the apples all scattered around.

The tree is dying. Her tree. She really is gone then. Evil Queen for sure, and his mother and what she might have been too. He'll never know what she could have been now, not for sure.

He stares at the tree, feeling three set of worried gazes on him.

"I hated her," he says, his voice flat even to himself. "I hated her for what she did to everyone, what she did to Gramps and Mary Margaret and you."

"Henry," Emma says softly, almost as if wanting to interrupt him, even though Regina cost her 28 years without parents.

"Is it okay I loved her as well?" he says, hearing his own voice break a little.

"Yeah, kid," Emma says firmly, and David and Mary Margaret nods as well when he looks at them, no resentment at all on their faces. "Of course. She was your mom."

He is crying, he realises. Of course. Of course. He can feel the tears and hear his own shuddering breath, and Emma is kissing the top of his head. Her tree. It is dying and she is dead, apples and ashes all that she left.

And him, he thinks faintly, as his grandparents join the embrace and they all stand there in the morning light before the dying apple tree. She also left him.

II

Regina Mills died.

There wasn't even a body, so Henry Mills buries an apple from her tree in the yard instead. Emma and his grandparents are there for it, a smaller crowd than most of the funerals after the battle, but more than large enough for him.

Afterwards, he sits for a long time in the sunlight just watching the spot, sometimes crying, sometimes not, wondering if the apple can grow to sapling. One day it might even become a mighty tree, he supposes, strong and fair and its fruit used only for good. A fairytale tree, the good kind. The kind its mother could not be, but wanted to in the end.

That would be a good story, he decides. He'll write it like that.

II

"You having a bad dream again?" Emma asks sleepily as he slips into her bed. "David says you like hearing stories after. Want me to tell one?"

"No," he says. "I'd like to tell one."

She smiles sleepily, shifting to make better room for him. "What about?"

"Saplings," he says, tucking his head under her chin. She chuckles a little.

"Okay, kid," she murmurs. "Tell me about saplings."

So he does.

FIN


End file.
